Russia wants to increase life expectancy to 75-80 years by 2025

February 07, 2012, 17:25 UTC+3Russia’s Ministry of Health and Social Development hopes to bring the average life expectancy in the country up to 75-80 years by 2025

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MOSCOW, February 7 (Itar-Tass) —— Russia’s Ministry of Health and Social Development hopes to bring the average life expectancy in the country up to 75-80 years and, thus, to increase the number of population to 145 million by the year 2025, deputy minister Maxim Topilin said on Tuesday.

“We want to have the average life expectancy at the level of the developed countries, or 75-80 years old, and to create conditions for each family to have at least two children,” he said at a meeting of the human resource development working group of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.

Earlier, minister Tatiana Golikova said that in the past five years, average life expectancy in Russia increased by 3.7 years. Thus, in 2011 life expectancy for women was 76.1 years, and for men – 64.3 years.

According to Topilin, one of the key goals of the country’s demographic policy by 2016 is to “stabilize the number of the population at the level of 143 million and to bring it further up to 145 million by the year 2025.” He also noted that serious measures are being implemented to bring down mortality rate from cardio-vascular diseases, traffic accidents, among children. Apart from that, measures are being taken to prevent occupational diseases and ensure occupational safety. As many as 460 billion roubles will be allocated for these purposes in the next few years, he noted.

According to the ministry statistics, the number of births has grown by 20 percent in recent years. At the same time, Russia sees it as its task to keep within the European levels of infant mortality rates.

The ministry also calls on private businesses to take a more active part in the development of the country’s social infrastructure, including for families with children, the elder, and for people with disabilities.

“We invite private businesses, including the ones from foreign countries, to take part in programs for the disabled and participate in joint social infrastructure projects,” Topilin added.